Weston Ochse is the author of more than twenty books, most recently SEAL Team 666 and its sequels Age of Blood and Reign of Evil, which the New York Post called 'required reading' and USA Today placed on their 'New and Notable Lists.' His first novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel and his short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in comic books, and magazines such as Cemetery Dance and Soldier of Fortune. He lives in the Arizona desert within rock throwing distance of Mexico. He is a military veteran with 30 years of military service and currently returned from a deployment to Afghanistan.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Nancy Goats - Undead Rat Reviews and Dad Talks

Undead Rat reviewed Nancy Goats recently. (For those who don't know, Nancy Goats is part of the Delirium Novella Series. It's a small book. It had a print run of 150 copies (ten left) and is now available in digital.)

This was a tough story to write. I wanted to deal with the issue of identity, especially from the perspective of a young man coming out. Doubly hard is that I can only view this from the outside in, but I hoped that my empathy would carry me through.

Here's what I wrote for the introduction:I originally conceived of Nancy Goats in 2002. I’d written a straw man short story, but wasn’t exactly happy about how it turned out, so I held onto it for awhile. The biggest issue was that although I wanted to write about gay issues, especially because of a recent rash of gay bashings in L.A. at the time, I didn’t want to be disrespectful to anyone. Thanks to Mikey Huyck and Mike Oliveri for looking at early versions of this and providing advice.
Thanks also to my Kuai Lua instructor in San Pedro, Mark Nunez, for not only teaching me Hawaiian blend jujutsu, but also for letting me be the bouncer at several MMA matches before UFC was a big deal. That gave me the opportunity to see firsthand fighters and their trainers in small octagon matches in downtown L.A. and Wilmington. I met the normal and the crazy. Most often I couldn’t tell the difference between
the two.

Thanks also to Kevin Sessums for his memoir, Mississippi Sissy. Reading this amazing piece of work reminded me that I had yet to finish Nancy Goats and inspired me to complete

So I wrote it. Delirium Books solicited a novella from me for their series and I decided to turn this one in. Serra did the amazing cover (it's a humanized goat in drag), then it came out. For awhile there was nothing but crickets. Then came two reviews back to back. Both of them slammed the book. Both condemned it for not being horror (I think it is). Both also had problems with a thing that happens just over halfway through the book. I can't go into it here, because it is a major spoiler, but there were several foreshadowing events.

So I sat down and talked with my dad about this book. First of all, let me tell you two things. 1. My dad is an English PHD and a full professor. 2. My dad never reads my work. For some reason, however, he read this one. Interesting, because it is pretty damn violent and not something I'd consider suitable for a Whitman scholar (My Dad's book is just there) and an expert on everything Shakespeare. Still, he parsed the violence, understanding that it was needed. When he finished, he called me. He said that he admired my skill with this story, because although it's violent and although it's decidedly horror, it is at its core a literary story.

Before all of you all go getting your pants in a pretzel, what he meant by that was that the story was centered around the emotional well-being of a character and the issue of identity, rather than anything concrete or physical. There was no quest. There was no physical goal. All there was was a figurative understanding that had to be attained before the story could conclude. I thought this was interesting and appreciate that my dad read one of my books. I also appreciate his comments because I think it puts some of the reviews in perspective. Not that these guys don't read or can't understand a literary story, but I camouflaged it too well. They weren't expecting it. They thought they were going to get a straightforward horror tale of violence and payback, but instead they got something else. Now I get it.

Undead Rat blurbs the story wonderfully: "Nancy Goats is violent but not gory. It’s full of hatred and dehumanization because of differences between people. And it’s about one young man who has struggled to make an identity for himself and then having to fight to resist the Family Pain’s attempt to brutalize and strip away his humanity; lest Paco truly becomes a goat."

Try and pop on over to Undead Rat's Website and give him some props, if nothing more than to click his Publicity Box on top.

3 comments:

"I'm honored, not just to be noticed by Weston Ochse, but to be mentioned in the same post as his Whitman scholar father."

But there is a little more that couldn't be crammed into 140 characters.

I really loved Nancy Goats and I read it twice for the review, enjoying it both times.

My father, who is a professor of psychology, came out to his family after 40-something years of marriage. The horror stories he told about being a gay man in Idaho (yeah, he came from Idaho too but I only now caught that) helped me understand how he could "hide" in plain sight for so long -- how he could deny such a fundamental aspect of his being -- his sexuality.

His story went in a different direction from Paco's. And yet your story helped me understand my father's story a little bit better.

I had a very interesting (and shocking) coming-out experience with one of my friends from high school. I played music with the guy for a couple of years. Guy was a rocker... long hair, beard, dressed and built like a lumberjack. No clue. We parted ways physically in 2000, when I moved back to NY and joined the military, but we're still in touch to this day.

Anyhow, in...04? 05? something like that, we were talking on the phone and he came out to me that he'd been living as a woman for several months and was now considering herself (not a typo) a pre-op transsexual. Needless to say, I was floored. I still support my friend, no doubt, but I can't always claim to understand all the time.

You know what to, though? That chick still plays some of the baddest rock-n-roll you'll ever hear. Has a band in NYC now.